I've run a couple of promotions using the new YouTube promotions beta tab, a relatively new
feature. I've gotten a number of questions asking me more about this YouTube promotions
beta feature. These include: "I don't have this option, how do I get it?" "How is this feature
different from Google ads?" "Will the YouTube promotions beta increase views and subscribers?"
"What is the effect on likes and comments?" "Does the promotion increase video watch
time?" and the question to end all questions: "Will the YouTube promotion beta feature grow
my Channel or not?" Well, stay tuned because this is exactly what we'll be tackling in this video.
I've received a couple of questions asking about the appearance of the YouTube promotion beta
feature. These include: "I don't have this option, how do I get it? Does my channel have to already
be monetized to have it? I would really give this a try because I struggle with my channel",
and "For me, I can't see the promotions video on my screen. Do you know why?" Well, yes I do.
As the name suggests, YouTube Promotions is still in beta. As the beta name suggests,
this is a new feature that YouTube is experimenting with, so that creators
can promote their channels and content without having to go through the Google Ads manager.
If you head over to your YouTube Studio, content and then right next to this podcast section,
the promotions beta feature isn't apparent,
it may be because your channel isn't whitelisted for this feature yet.
However, stay tuned because eventually, this tab will be apparent for you as well.
The next question I received was: "How is this feature different from Google Ads?" "Will the
views and Subs be counted for YouTube Partner program eligibility?" Well, this feature is
different from Google Ads in the sense that you don't need to access your Google Ads manager in
order to run it. You can manage these YouTube promotions directly from your YouTube Studio.
When it comes to joining the YouTube Partner program, if we scroll down to their FAQ section,
we can see here that in order to join the program, you need to have valid public watch hours or
valid public shorts views. However, watch hours gained through ad campaigns, which include those
that you create in the YouTube promotions beta tab, don't count towards the YouTube
Partner program thresholds. The same goes for the subscribers that you gain from YouTube promotions.
On to the next question, "The only value I can see would be to new channels in order to
up its views and subscribers. What do you think?" Well, looking at these two promotions that I ran,
both my view counts and subscriber count increased due to the YouTube promotion.
For the first promotion, where the ad spend was a little over a hundred dollars, I gained over
19,000 views and almost 3,000 subscribers while targeting those in the US, UK, Canada,
Philippines, and India. This other promotion that I ran, which had an ad budget of fifty dollars,
gained over a thousand views but just 12 subscribers. Not as good
as the first promotion, but I still saw an increase in these two metrics.
Let's dive a little deeper into the results I got from these promotions and I'll talk about the
effects on likes and comments that I received. For the first YouTube promotion that I ran,
I saw a higher number of likes than I usually receive: 53 in total. But I also saw a higher
number of dislikes in my video: 17 in total. When it comes to the number of comments on that video,
I saw 15 in total, which is in line with the number of comments I usually get.
Looking at the results of the second promotion I ran using the YouTube promotions beta tab,
I received 9 likes, which is in line with the number of likes I usually receive. When it
comes to the number of comments I received on that video, I received a total of 7,
which is also a normal number of likes I usually receive on any one of my videos.
Now let's talk about watch time. Did the promotion increase video watch time or not? For the first
promotion that I ran using the YouTube promotions beta tab, my average view duration was just 13
seconds long, which is 1 minute and 10 seconds less than usual. From this graph over here,
you can see exactly when the promotion occurred, which was between this date and this date, and it
had a really low average view duration. After the promotion ended, there were some slight increases.
However, overall, the average percentage viewed is just 6.7 percent, which is really low, and just 11
percent of viewers are still watching at around the 30-second mark, which again is below typical.
When analyzing the second promotion that I ran, we can see over here that the average
view duration was 2 minutes and 7 seconds, which is 39 seconds more than usual. Scrolling down,
we can see that the average percentage viewed was 50.2 percent, although just 35 percent
of viewers were still watching at around the 30-second mark, which is also below typical.
Now, why is there a difference? Why does this second promotion have a higher average
view duration whereas the first promotion has a way below-average average view duration? Well,
this probably has to do with the targeting that I chose for both of these promotions. For the first
promotion, I targeted viewers in Canada, the UK, India, Philippines, and the United States,
whereas in the second promotion, I just targeted viewers in Canada, the UK, and the United States.
This question here is very interesting, and I wonder about that too.
What would have been the result if you had just selected the U.S as the target audience? I did
a test running a YouTube promotion to viewers in Canada, the UK, and the U.S, but not just the U.S,
so I'd love to know about you. Have you run promotions just for those in the U.S,
and if so, what kind of results did you see?
Let's now talk about whether you can use a YouTube promotion ad for your YouTube video
and whether that will grow your Channel or not. Just looking at these results
over here regarding promotion impressions, promotion views, and promotion subscribers,
independent of the ad spend and targeting of each one of these two promotions, you can see
that overall, yes, the YouTube promotions feature does help you increase your channel
by increasing the number of impressions, views, and subscribers that you gain from your videos.
However, when we look at the graph for this first promotion, we can see that all the major metrics,
such as views, watch time, subscribers, and revenue, mainly increased during the period
of the promotion. Once the promotion was over, the growth was pretty much stagnant.
The same thing occurred for the second promotion. There was growth in terms of views, watch time,
subscribers, and revenue mainly during the period of the promotion, but after that, the growth is
pretty much stagnant. From this, we can infer that YouTube may, in fact, be pay-to-play. In
order to see an increase in all of your major metrics, you will have to pay in order to grow.
Lastly, we have this big question: Should I promote or not? In other words,
is it worth it to run a YouTube promotion using the YouTube promotions beta tab or not? Well,
from the results I gathered from the comments you left on my YouTube videos,
it seems like the YouTube promotions beta tab still has some work to do. One of you said,
"It's not working for me. I create promos and it gets active, and it never gets any views
and impressions, and there is no way to know what is wrong." Another one of you mentioned,
"You're not alone. The same thing happened to me a week later and zero impressions, which means your
system isn't even running them. It's in beta, so hopefully they'll realize this issue is going on."
This one was one of the few positive comments I received: "I did this for one of my videos,
and it's been three days and I've gotten 18K views and 900 subscribers on a $50 budget." Here's
another person sharing a negative experience: "I just had a meeting with my staff, and we've had
the same result. Now four days into our promotion, we also did the same thing in removing all but
United States and English in the options. While those subs are useless and low watch time hurts
your channel, we're going to continue to test the system, but so far, it's not looking good."
Lastly, I received this comment saying that the new beta is not good in any possible way. "It's
far more expensive for what you get out, and the old Google Ads promotions worked better. Hey,
YouTube, ever hear of the phrase 'don't fix it if it's not broke'? YouTube messed up with this."
Well, I'd love to hear about your experience as well. Do you have the YouTube promotions
beta feature? If so, what were your results? Did you see an increase in views, subscribers,
watch time, likes, and comments? Or were all of your major metrics
stagnant? Let us know in the comments below and keep this conversation going.